


Of Wings and Starlight

by Mellowenglishgal



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: And I want to see Commander Cassian dominating the training camps, And I've watched too much Mad Max and Mandalorian not to have truly badass female characters, Anyone else hate the IC hypocrisy toward Eris?, As yet undecided who I'll kill..., Badass female characters doesn't mean non-feminine, Because they're so old and bored they've tried everything!, Character Death, Complicated Family Dynamics!, F/M, Fae Politics and Family Drama, Fluid Fae!, I have plans for him..., I love him but Rhys needs a slap, I'll be exploring him, I'm getting too old to tolerate bad POV characters!, If ACOTAR had been MA not YA, It's okay to leave even when they're not abusive, M/M, Mating Bond What Mating Bond?, Meaning: No Morrigan Monologue!, Minimal Morrigan, Multi, New OC New Family, No Archerons, No Demonizing Tamlin, So I'll write them myself!, So I've taken Maas' world and made it my own!, So many details I'd love to have learned more about, Strong (Not Bitchy) female characters, The more I read it the more issues I have with it..., Why give characters powers if they don't use them?, adult OC, because WHY NOT?!, lots of smut, mature content, non-toxic masculinity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28200045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellowenglishgal/pseuds/Mellowenglishgal
Summary: When the High Lord of Spring demands a life for a life, Angharad joins him in the dangerous and forbidden Fae lands of Prythian - to discover the truth hidden beneath the beast's creative lies about broken terms of the Treaty, and what is truly going on beyond the wall - and what it may mean for the human realms left vulnerable to it.Five hundred years have passed since the Slaves' War: with faerie attacks becoming more and more frequent at the borders, humankind must have some way of infiltrating Prythian to discover the source of the threat - and how they may prepare for an invasion.Tamlin could have had no idea what he set in motion when he reluctantly fulfilled the terms of the curse on himself and his people: But his choices altered the very fabric of the world.Angharad reminds the Fae of the strength and tenacity of humans: Their bravery and their brilliance.
Relationships: Azriel & Eris Vanserra, Azriel (ACoTaR)/Original Character(s), Cassian (ACoTaR) & Original Character(s), Eris Vanserra/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 25





	Of Wings and Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> So… I’m rewriting ACoTaR because I could not stand the Archeron family! This version will be more Mature than YA (especially certain chapters!) I loved the premise and the story, and most of the secondary characters, but I’ve rearranged things, hopefully you’ll enjoy them.
> 
> I watched a little too much Medici on Netflix while readjusting some of my ideas for this fic, which is how I came up with Angharad’s backstory.
> 
> Face-claims for our boys: Rhysand - Matt Bomer: Cassian - Henry Cavill: Azriel - Matthew Daddario. Gal Gadot is my face-claim for the splendid Angharad - and yes, the name was inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road, but it was a last-minute change from Doreiah.
> 
> I’ve also created a Pinterest board of the same name for your perusal.

**Of Wolves and Starlight**

_01_

_Last Hope_

* * *

Here, in this modest but elegant redbrick manor-house, dwelled his last hope.

A human who had killed his sentinel in cold blood.

A female who had murdered one of the Fae with hate in her heart.

The great hall was dark and smoky, the scent of fresh splinters tickling his tongue, his senses drenched in their dread, overpowering the perfume of their lives - rich gravy and dried herbs, peat and preserved fruit, fresh bread, earth and sweat and hard-work, aged logs and mushrooms growing in the cellar, lavender keeping the moths from their clothing and tucked into their mattresses, and a whisper of the musty scent of lovemaking, fortified wine and sweat-soaked silk. The scent of joy and delight permeated the very bricks and panelling and ancient hammer-beam roof of the great hall. This was a home created by love, not tainted by fear. Lit by a roaring hearth, the panelled room showed the details of a family life he had no care to investigate. A slim, dark-haired girl had responded to the explosion of the front-door and his appearance in the hall by hurling a knife. Her aim was off, and the heavy, inlaid handle of the blade glanced off the archway, bounced off the wood and ricocheted onto the worn flagstone floor, where snow melted, drifting in past his hulking form.

A withered crone glowered from her high-backed wooden chair beside the blazing hearth, swathed in heavy blankets and quilts, fine silver hair gathered beneath an ancient lace veil, her gnarled fingers clenched around knitting-needles as if they were blades, her withered face hawkish, predatory, glaring at him as if she was of a mind to spear the needles through his eyes if he so much as dared look too long at the young woman who stood with her fists clenched at her sides, inky eyes fierce as they stared him down, terrified but ferocious, beautiful and wilful. He sniffed toward her, growling low.

A beautiful golden child gasped softly, tears splashing down her rosy cheeks as he prowled inside, thrashing around, bellowing, “ _MURDERERS_!!” The child whimpered. Even the young man quaked at the bellow that shook the house, but he set his strong jaw and shoved the small golden child into a back room, pressing his back firmly against the closed door, glaring him down defiantly in spite of the stench of fear that coated his tongue, a reminder of his own childhood, memories he had long hoped to forget. Embers glinted in the depths of the human male’s vivid blue eyes, but Tamlin paid him no mind, thrashing around, bellowing again.

“Enough.” It was a quiet voice in the dark. Soft, rich and unnervingly calm.

He didn’t understand her at all, though the command in her tone transcended any language barrier.

It had never occurred to Tamlin that there would be something as simple as a barrier of _language_ between them. That the humans would no longer understand the common-tongue prevalent across all but the most isolated communities in Prythian.

He wove a spell so that they would understand him. So that _he_ would understand _them_. It put him on unsteady footing, realising this would not be so simple. And the spell was draining; he would not be able to maintain it, if he wished to continue to protect his boundaries from Amarantha’s filth.

The crone’s age-paled eyes glinted as she glanced away from him, to the stairwell shrouded in shadow, something like the whisper of a smile on her wasted lips. The beautiful, raven-haired girl by the crone flitted her fathomless eyes to the stairs, to the woman who stepped gracefully into the flickering light. c

Even for peasants, and _humans_ , the two females were undeniably lovely.

It startled him.

But it would be easy to flatter a beauty into loving him, far more than a homely girl: Plain Fae were always distrustful, too suspicious of the attention given them. Far easier to coax a beauty accustomed to flattery and worship of their beauty as their due.

But it had taken too long for the terms to be fulfilled. A human female who killed their kind with hate in her heart…to fall in love with him - to say those three words - to free him. Free his Court.

He needed only one of them.

He had time. To coax a human female to love him? _That_ would take no time at all.

“ _WHO KILLED HIM_?”

The older woman blinked, a slight frown drawing her neat brows together. Her gaze went to his fanged mouth: He imagined what she heard did not match the words she saw his mouth forming, and indeed, it was unsettling to hear his own voice forming a strange tongue as he spoke in his own native one.

“Stop bellowing. There is none in this house who has killed a man.” The woman in the stairwell stepped out of the shadows, her voice low and soft, soothing, sensually accented, but there was a fierce tone of steel that challenged him. The firelight played lovingly across the high planes and sensuous curves of her face as she stepped further into the light, tall and slender as a sapling, older than the girl by the fire but uncannily similar in looks, most of her dark hair swept up into a neat knot that exposed her beautiful long throat, the rest of her hair falling loose down her back in gentle waves.

“I speak not of a man. The _wolf_ ,” he growled, low and vicious. The girl by the fire straightened her back ever so slightly, and the crone narrowed her eyes as he paced in his beastlike form. That they had not fallen into dead faints at the sight of him was…admirable. He remembered…

He remembered fiercer Fae cowering and losing control of their bowels at the mere whisper of his shifted form… These women - the young man guarding the door with absolutely no weapons, only his life to give in the protection of the child now weeping out of sight, confused. These people, these humans, were not like he remembered the slaves of his Court during the reign of his father.

They were _strong_.

Tamlin shoved down the memories - things his brothers would have done to these women had they stood in his place.

The tall woman, fiercely elegant and almost intimidating in her coolness, swept her eyes over him, and he bristled at the dismissive look on her face.

“A wolf was killed. A lone wolf at winter this near to the village is a threat to all,” she said, her spine straight, her shoulders and chin level with the shining flagstone floor, composed and unyielding.

“Did it attack you?” he raged. “Were you provoked?”

The woman’s dark eyes narrowed slightly. “Its life was forfeit the moment it strayed beyond the wall.”

“Watch your words, human,” Tamlin warned.

“You are not in your lands, and this is _our_ home. You will mind your tone,” said the woman coldly, her tone at odds with her sensuous, rich accent. She looked every inch an empress, firelight and shadows caressing her skin, tall, elegant and formidable. And Tamlin felt as if he had been slapped for impertinence. “Why are you here?”

Tamlin growled, pacing before the fractured door. “In killing that wolf you broke the terms of the Treaty signed by your ancestors,” he growled, and for a brief second he thought the woman exchanged a glance with the crone, now holding the younger girl’s hand. The child was crying in the other room, begging the male to let her out. The young human male was watching him warily, his gaze flickering from Tamlin to the older woman. They all looked to her, he realised. The head of the family. Was there no male to lead them? Was the young one by the door too inexperienced, too young, or too foolish to lead the family?

Tamlin could not recall human ages as they correlated to looks, their slaves had been freed when he was still a boy, and the wall raised, but the woman had a refined beauty even he could acknowledge - the young, blossoming beauty beside the crone looked very like her, her features eerily similar but her colouring an even more vivid contrast, her thick hair raven-black instead of rich dark treacle, her eyes an unsettlingly intense hazel, rather than rich brandy, her skin pale rather than a beguiling honeyed olive. They had the same lovely oval face and high cheekbones, dainty chin and fine eyebrows. Their mouths were identical; plump lips designed by the gods to pleasure a male, the bottom lip larger and plumper, the top lip perfectly bowed.

“And which of the terms of the Treaty was broken?” asked the woman gently. His eyes darted from the queenly woman to the young beauty by the fire. He did not know which he would prefer to have killed his sentry, which he would force to his home, to break the curse. Either.

Perhaps _both_.

If he had to wheedle and coax rather than terrify… Offer luxury to _both_ in order to have one. Perhaps _have_ both… The crone gazed beadily at him, eyes watery in the firelight, but cutting, as if she read his thoughts, and was amused by them. She grinned gummily, and Tamlin wondered if she was mad.

“Any unprovoked attacks on faerie-kind by humans must be compensated for,” Tamlin growled, glancing away from the younger one. She would be more malleable, certainly. A young, foolish girl with her head full of stories of the beauty and power of faeries…

“That _monster_ breached the Wall!” the young girl scowled, and Tamlin’s hackles rose - not because she had referred to his sentry as a beast, but because of the ferocity in her tone - crackling with lightning and wildfire. She did not sound as if she was a girl who spent her days dreaming of faerie knights - rather, she was the wicked beast that slayed them… “It would’ve slaughtered the entire village if we’d let it go unchecked. A _mob_ would’ve butchered it -“

“Be quiet,” said the older woman, not looking away from Tamlin.

“But -“

“ _Quiet_ , girl!” scolded the crone harshly, flashing the girl a dangerous look.

The older woman gave Tamlin a measuring look. “And the payment?”

“A life for a life.” The young girl’s plump lips parted in rage and horror that seemed to cut through her dread, her eyes lancing to the older woman, who was giving Tamlin another cool, assessing look. The crone was scowling at him, her eyes shrewd, face puckered in severe dislike. He growled low, menacing enough they would not see the falsehood for what it was, for fear of him. Five hundred years since the Treaty had been signed, and here, in this Cauldron-forsaken manor-house, he had her at last. The one viable female in nearly seven times seven years who might break that bitch’s curse.

“The Treaty forbids the Fae from enslaving humans,” said the older woman quietly.

“Most of you mortals have chosen to forget the other parts of the Treaty. Which makes punishing you far more enjoyable,” he growled menacingly, and her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, until they were merely pinpricks of light reflected from the fire, her face in shadow - stars, glinting in endless night. “Prythian must claim a life, for the life you took from it. As representative of the immortal realm, I can either gut you like swine, or…”

The older woman cocked her head to the side, raising an eyebrow imperiously, waiting, rather than ask him to continue.

He growled, and it came out rather more like an order than a suggestion: “You will cross the wall and live out the remainder of your days in Prythian.”

The crone hissed through her teeth, murmuring as if to herself, “Better a quick, brutal death than a faerie’s plaything.”

“And where exactly would these days be lived out?” the older woman asked serenely. “Every breath, every touch, every glance in Prythian is lethal to humans.”

“I...have lands. I will grant permission to live there, and protection.”

“Magnanimous,” sniffed the crone, now taking up her knitting again, to the consternation of the young girl, who was staring wide-eyed at the older woman. Tamlin gaped at her, as the crone clicked her tongue and mused, “Perhaps the beast is lonely, my love.”

Her tone was tart, irreverent - and might have been funny, if the situation her family was in wasn’t so serious. She looked… _decrepit_. Was she addled in her mind? Did she not understand the seriousness of the situation? He could butcher all of them without a thought.

He should. He should snatch the girl and slay the rest. His father would have. His brothers would have.

They wouldn’t have been in this position to begin with.

But he was.

And Tamlin was not his father. Was not his brothers.

“Who murdered the wolf?” Tamlin rumbled dangerously.

“I did.” The slender older woman spoke, before the young girl by the fire could open her mouth. Her hazel eyes widened, landing on the older woman, who shared a look that was at once a terrifying warning and filled with a ferocious love Tamlin had never known. He growled impatiently, flitting a glance at the girl by the fire. The crone noticed, and gave him a gummy, shrewd smile, her eyes glinting wickedly.

“He doesn’t appear to take a fancy to you, pet,” she cooed naughtily, laughing, at the older woman. The look the older woman gave him would have flayed a lesser Fae, lip curled, glittering dark eyes drenched with disdain: his hackles rose. She dared look down upon _him_?

“You murdered my friend,” he growled.

Unflinching, the woman said, “You allowed him to come south of the wall, knowing his life was forfeit the moment he did so. Did you expect humans to have forgotten, and leave ourselves vulnerable to the influence of the Fae?”

“You murdered him. Skinned his corpse and sold his hide at the market like a common beast!” Tamlin snarled, self-hatred shuddering through him. He had sent Andras to such a fate. For nearly seven times seven years, his sentries had returned. Andras had been their last, most desperate hope. The woman’s dark eyes narrowed, but she let him continue. “You said he _deserved_ it. Have you humans forgotten mercy?”

“Have the Fae finally learned it?” the crone quipped tartly, her eyes smouldering embers in her withered face, her sunken mouth puckered in distaste.

“Aunt,” the woman warned gently, her eyes never leaving Tamlin as he paced. She said silkily, “The beast would have done worse to us - as you now threaten to. Do you deny it?”

“Andras was ordered to do no harm to any humans who crossed his path.”

“And why should he follow your orders?” Realising he had revealed far too much, Tamlin roared, rather than answer. The woman gazed imperiously at him, unflinching, as if his response was exactly what she had expected. Her heartbeat thumped on, strong and unyielding. “The wall was built to ensure the safety of both our peoples. You forfeited your friend’s life when you sent him into our lands. His death is on your conscience.”

“You say you killed him,” he growled, but the woman did not flinch. “Then you shall decide. Which of your kin will you send beyond the wall as offering, the debt to be repaid? Choose quickly, for my patience grows thin.”

“If indeed the terms of the Treaty demand a sacrifice must be made to appease the Fae, then I shall go beyond the wall to your lands,” the woman said evenly, and something glimmered in the crone’s face, something like wry triumph, her pale eyes glinting malevolently as she glowered at Tamlin, her face puckered unpleasantly. “And when you leave this place, you shall not think of it again.”

“Those are not the terms.”

“Those are _my_ terms. A life for a life, you demanded. One life, no more. You may make a plaything of me, but never my kin,” she said, her voice sharp and unyielding. Despite himself, Tamlin…was quietly awed by her strength. She stood straight-backed and proud, exotic and lovely - if difficult.

Tamlin growled low.

“We leave immediately,” he snarled. The young girl’s mouth popped open again.

“You can’t be _serious_?” she gaped at the older woman. “You can’t go with this _beast_. He’ll butcher you in a heartbeat - or worse!”

The woman gave him a measuring look that made him feel as if he had been flayed, seeing through him. He growled low at the insouciant tilt to her succulent lips as she smirked, and quietly said, “He won’t.”

Her eyes glittered as she turned to the crone, whose wizened face seemed to crumple for a second as the woman dipped to press tender kisses on her sunken cheeks. The crone raised one age-spotted hand, fingers gnarled and knotted, her eyes glittering, and Tamlin growled low, alarmed by the curious expression that seemed to pass between the women - an expression he did not understand.

The woman straightened, and went to the young man guarding the door; his eyes were wide, vivid blue, his face pale and yet his attention was rapt on her, reading her face, breathless with dread. She tenderly trailed her fingers along his jaw, murmuring something softly to him as she leaned in to kiss his cheeks, cradling his face in her hands, which Tamlin saw were impossibly beautiful. She slipped into the chamber beyond, where a tiny voice whimpered in confusion, and he prowled, pacing, watching the crone with her knitting-needles, the girl with eyes flashing with a choking hatred that sent a shudder down Tamlin’s spine in recognition - remembering the last time someone had looked at him with such pure and vicious hatred, their fury white-hot, crackling like lightning, features lovingly caressed by shadows, his father butchered between them, the ghosts of their dead family members haunting them, the stench of copper gagging, choking on the power enveloping him…

He blocked out the sounds of the woman speaking in tender, lulling tones to the small golden child hidden in the other room, did not wish to associate her with all he was forcing her to leave behind. He should return to his lands, to the Rose Hall, and wait for her. Wait for Amarantha, crowing in delight over his defeat. Embrace his future as her pet and plaything and lover and the Mother knew what else…

It was that thought that strengthened his resolve.

He knew Rhysand well enough to know he was no puppet to be played with: Rhysand was playing a very dangerous game indeed.

And yet Tamlin had never been trained the way Rhysand had. When it came to court intrigue and diplomacy, he relied often too heavily on silver-tongued Lucien to promote his interests.

But it was the thought of becoming Amarantha’s whore, the same as Rhysand, that had provoked him to send Andras on this last, desperate suicide-mission. To become her whore; to watch his people become her playthings to torture.

He hated to imagine what horrors Amarantha had in store for Lucien.

The crone continued to smirk at him; the girl glowered venomously, vibrating with rage; and the young man fought to catch his breath as the woman reappeared, passing the small golden child into his arms with a tender kiss, combing her elegant fingers through the child’s shining golden hair that curled tightly at the nape of her neck and at her ears. Great fat tears dripped perfectly down rosy cheeks, and her fingertips turned white as she clutched at the tunic of the man who clamped her against his chest, embracing her fiercely as the woman turned once more, to the girl.

The girl was not quite as tall as the woman. Stood gazing at each other, Tamlin was struck by their near-identical profiles, their fine eyelashes, the elegant curve of their noses, their long, slender throats, their exquisite jawlines and those lips moulded by the Mother herself to pleasure males. The woman’s profile was especially pleasing due to her hairstyle, half her hair gathered and twisted into a coil at the back of her head, the rest of her hair tumbling to her waist in gentle waves, an expensive comb pinning her hair in place.

An unreadable expression flickered across the woman’s face as she gazed at the girl, brandy-rich dark brown eyes meeting intense hazel ones, rich forest-green flecked with amber and gold and even a shade of brandy exactly the hue of the older woman’s eyes.

“Work hard, but live hard. Let nothing spoil you, and rise above hate and fear, no matter how much it hurts to forgive,” the woman said, her voice even, though her heart thundered and stuttered. She clasped the girl’s face in her elegant hands, her eyes intense, memorising every line and curve of the girl’s face. “Remember, she who lies in the mud rises dirty. If you must, marry for respect, and compassion, and commitment, never for ease or wealth… One day, should you have children of your own, protect their innocence, that they may know joy all their lives; raise them with kindness and wisdom, that they may spread it to everyone they meet; and _work_ so they have opportunity.” She slapped the girl in the face, hard, her expression for a heartbeat turning harrowed and teary-eyed as the girl gasped. “So you remember…”

She reached back, and removed the exquisite, enamelled comb from the coiled bun at the back of her head. Tamlin caught her scent as the twists of her hair tumbled free, but growled low as he caught another scent - ash: The shaft of the hair-comb was made of ash, lethal to his kind, fashioned into a jewel, the diamond-inlaid, enamelled petals of a voluptuous orchid deeply erotic and mouth-watering in their suggestiveness, even the dainty hues of pink succulent and tempting, bringing to mind other things even as he gazed at the woman’s nimble fingers, now tangled in the girl’s velvety raven hair, unbinding her braids and draping loose twists into a coiled bun, pinning it in place with the lethal, erotic comb. She tenderly adjusted the comb, the bun, the delicate twists, even as her own hair fell free in a careless tumble to her bottom, and turned the girl back to face her, her eyes assessing even as they glinted in the firelight.

Tamlin did not understand the ways of women, but even he could appreciate the symbolism of the woman binding the girl’s hair half-up, using her own comb. A rite of passage. A declaration that the girl was now a woman - was ready to take her place. She leaned forward, and tenderly kissed the girl’s brow, her eyelashes, her cheeks, the tip of her pretty nose, her lips.

“Never forget that I love you,” she murmured, and the girl looked furious, her eyes sparkling, as the woman turned away, dry-eyed and serene. With all the imperiousness of an empress, she turned to Tamlin, levelling her dark eyes on him expectantly.

He prowled out of the house, seemingly uncaring whether she followed, needing no threats or violence to drag her out of the house - as much as possible, Lucien had advised him to remain gentle, to give the girl no reason to dread him. That coaxing a female who despised and feared him into loving him would take far more effort, and far too much time than they could afford. And violence was a hard place to come back from. So the implied _threat_ of violence would have to suffice; he imagined the woman was clever enough to appreciate her predicament. That any attempt to harm him was futile, and likely to hurt her more than him. To strike against him was to risk their safety.

Let the implied threat guide every choice she made, if she was so foolish to risk her own safety by acting against her own self-preservation.

The heat of her, the soft crunch of the snow beneath her feet, the rustle of her skirts, her scent teasing his nose, alerted him to her whereabouts; he had no fear of her at his back, unarmed, no longer wearing her ash-comb. He wondered why she had given it away, her only defence against him.

 _What could that comb do to me_ , he thought, with a scoff that chuffed hot air billowing before him, wreathing his head like a mane in the moonlight. Even with his fur, it was brutally cold below the magical demarcation of the wall. As if the wall had sucked all that was good and wholesome and…and _magical_ from the very earth and air. He despised the thing, envied the other High Lords their distance from the hateful structure.

During his father’s reign, the Spring Court had extended to the southernmost coast of Prythian: After the War, as punishment for his alliance with Hybern, the other High Lords had seen fit to humiliate Spring by stripping the court of its lands - the wall had been erected, splitting Spring in two. On one side of the wall, the fractured, impoverished court Tamlin had inherited. On the other, their lands had been given over to the humans, as dictated by the terms of the Treaty, and his father’s surrender - just as the lands south of the wall had been handed to the humans on the continent.

He approached the saddled snow-white mare resting peacefully in the woods just out of sight of the manor-house, the moonlight coaxing the frostbitten woods to glint and glow, and the horse whickered, snorting, as the woman approached, cloaked, her hair neatly braided over her ears in a circlet, her hands concealed by thick woollen mittens: she gave the calm mare an assessing look, and climbed up into the saddle in a whirl of skirts and a flash of embroidered garters holding up her stockings. Her feet were booted; she also wore thick knitted socks to her knees, and in the moonlight Tamlin saw gooseflesh cover what little flesh she revealed as she adjusted her skirts, settling into the saddle with a sigh that sounded, dare he say it, _bored_. She gathered the reins and turned her gaze to him, expectant. He grumbled irritably, and padded on, annoyed by how impassive she seemed, how…unimpressed. He heard her click her tongue coaxingly, and in the moonlight as he strode ahead, heard her murmur gently to the horse - as if this was an idle ride through the countryside on a fine summer’s day, not the dead of night, following a High Fae intent on claiming her.

As if she understood exactly how much it perplexed and unnerved him to hear her do so, the woman hummed softly to herself on occasion, and the hours seemed to stretch endlessly for Tamlin as he prowled through the human lands - lands that had once been his father’s, lands he barely remembered from his own childhood as the humans’ rebellion raged. He could have winnowed with the woman to the wall, but after discussing it at length with Lucien, he had decided he did not wish to risk exposing her to magic too soon - or risk anyone else sensing his magic. He was sure Amarantha had her spies below the wall, just as she did in Spring, just as she had for all those years as she coaxed and flattered and flirted her way through the courts, soothing ancient sores suffered during the rebellion, and even before. There were few Tamlin trusted - not even Lucien, if it came down to it: He had learned his lesson long ago, far too brutally… Had he not broken so severely the trust of a male he had loved and respected, Tamlin’s life would have been very different: None of this would have fallen to him. His friend’s family would still be alive; _his_ family would still be alive.

He had broken the trust of his friend: He _deserved_ to live in perpetual distrust, holding everyone at arm’s length.

He had betrayed his friend: He had stood by and watched as his father and brothers mutilated the winged beauty and her innocent little daughter… And he had paid for it every day since, the responsibility of ruling the Spring Court thrust upon him, an ashen taste in his mouth at every meal, his nights riddled with memories drenched in horror, shame riding him so hard it was a wonder he had never considered a way to end it - if only for the fact he had no idea what would happen to his people if he left them without an heir. Would the other High Lords carve up his lands? Beron wouldn’t bother to check his life’s blood had cooled before he snatched up rich territories, though Eris may trouble himself to give Tamlin’s people a heartbeat’s warning before descending upon them with his armies; yet Tamlin believed Summer may take in refugees from his court.

He bristled at the memories of a little girl - enormous violet eyes so wide and innocent, smiling happily as she played among the wildflowers, clutching her book, sunning her glorious wings, chattering happily to her mother, sweet and kind and joyous, just as Rhys had told him… He swallowed the dizzying nausea threatening to overwhelm him, as it did every time the nightmare resurfaced, the child’s screams echoing on the air, the pages of her book splattered with blood like rubies glimmering in the sunlight as the scent of wildflowers was overpowered by the copper tang of blood, his brothers’ cruel laughter overriding the girl’s whimpers of fear, as her mother grunted in pain…

He jerked at the sudden memory, one he had fought long and hard to suppress, and blamed the golden child in the manor-house for its resurgence, her tears as she gaped at his monstrous form, her eyes so wide - and the young male, unarmed, ready to die to defend her…as he should have for Rhys’ sister, his mother… The golden child had looked nothing like Rhys’ olive-skinned, violet-eyed, black-haired sister - except for the innocence in her eyes. And the horror the sight of him instilled in them.

Olive-skinned… He growled and cast a glare over his shoulder at the woman. She had rich dark olive skin, just like those Illyrians from the Night Court. Rich and sun-kissed even in the heart of winter, tempting and provocative. He flinched as he turned back to his path, swatting helplessly at his memories of Lady Althaia, screaming as his brother cut down her daughter - the life in her violet eyes snuffing out as her little daughter bled out amid the wildflowers in moments, her silence as they cut off her wings, and ravaged her. When they had sated themselves, they had slit her throat to the bone and flung the bodies into the river - all but their wings. The wings, his father had taken as trophies to remind him of the moment he had broken the High Lord of Night.

 _Fool_ , Tamlin thought, burning with shame and rage.

If he could go back, now, this moment, he knew what he would have done - what he _should_ have done. He wished every waking moment he had had the courage to do it then, to stand between his family and the innocents they sought to butcher and brutalise.

He would remember Lady Althaia’s scream until his very last breath. It woke him in the middle of the night, a chill down his spine, the tang of copper on his tongue, his eyes burning with shame and regret and horror. He had stood by and done _nothing_ …as he had done for the last forty-eight years, because anything was better than reliving that awful day. He had stood by and let innocents be brutalised and mutilated then; he knew perfectly well that Amarantha had set up her curse for him to fail. He would rather he and his people be enslaved to her than be the reason an innocent was betrayed and brutalised because of him ever again.

And yet…it was her greatest weapon, he knew. _Hope_.

His people _hoped_ he could break the curse and free them.

He hoped he would never have to watch this human woman be mutilated for a vicious fae’s amusement.

And in spite of knowing that was the likeliest outcome - Amarantha was nothing if not cunning, petty, vengeful and predictable - Tamlin knew he had to do everything in his power to protect his people. That meant making horrendous choices that ripped an innocent woman from her family, to be manipulated by him into breaking a curse she could never have known she would ever be drawn into.

In claiming her, he had twisted her fate.

Every step that took him closer to the wall, to his lands, his home, sealed this woman’s fate.

He knew that Amarantha had set him up to fail: That he would even dare think of breaking the curse, that it might even become a possibility…

This woman would not live to see Tamlin in his Fae form.

He knew: He _knew_ Amarantha far too well to believe she would ever allow hope to catch alight and spread… She would allow it to be nurtured, to grow just enough that it broke any who dared believe in it.

People said Clythia’s death had ruined the never-fading flower: Tamlin knew the monster that had enslaved Prythian was the true Amarantha, so effectively hidden behind flattery and false diplomacy. She had not changed: In enslaving the High Lords and subjugating their people, she had simply _revealed_ her true monstrous nature.

Every step toward the wall was agony. Every step filled him with shame and regret for the life of the woman he led to her death, without her even realising it. Even if he could coax her into loving him, to declaring her love - a human female who killed a Fae with hate in her heart, willing to marry him - she would die, mutilated by Amarantha for daring to defy her. To crush Tamlin once and for all, snaring him Under the Mountain for all eternity.

Or at least, until the King of Hybern snatched Prythian from her as punishment for her audacity.

Few things kept him going: The thought of Amarantha getting what was owed her from the King she had betrayed was one of them. The idea of the delicious tortures the King would visit on his former general for her insolence, and her defiance… Unless he _praised_ her for her ruthlessness, her enterprise - she had claimed Prythian for herself, after all, rendered the High Lords effectively neutralised, and toyed with them for her pleasure. Whispers reached them in the Rose Hall of the goings on Under the Mountain and in the rare courts Amarantha allowed to remain in their lands, not effectively imprisoned Under the Mountain. The Night Court and Autumn had had as close to free reign as Amarantha would allow, though he heard rumours that Rhysand had never yet left Amarantha’s side in nearly fifty years, not even to return to his harrowing Court of Nightmares beneath the mountains of the northernmost court.

They said Amarantha had modelled her court Under the Mountain after Rhysand’s sadistic court of punishment and pleasure. Amarantha had filled her halls with the very worst of Rhysand’s lot, the very worst of Beron’s ilk: They revelled in the sadistic pleasures of their new queen, quietly anticipating the death of Rhysand, plotting to wed Eris Vanserra to the Queen to promote Autumn’s interests.

Brutal, sadistic bastard that he was, Beron Vanserra had fought _for_ human freedoms during the war. And Amarantha would not forget that, no matter how pretty or courteous or vicious Eris Vanserra was… Eris _was_ vicious, and had more than earned his reputation. And yet…and yet Lucien lived only because Eris had tipped off one of Tamlin’s spies…

Tamlin could never quite work out Eris, but he was quite sure about Lucien’s true character.

He would rather have died than Jesminda, that awful day he was overpowered by his father, forced to watch as his brothers mutilated his beloved.

The woman on the white mare was destined for the same fate, Tamlin thought, flinching. Lucien would not forgive him for it. They had argued for months over it, when his sentinels had come to Tamlin with an ultimatum: Either he sent them with his blessing, or they went without it. But either way, something must be done, and they weighed the life of one human against the lives of the entire Spring Court, and made Tamlin ashamed for having sat idle and stubborn for so long.

But it sat ill with him, his fur on end, his hackles raised, as he padded over the brittle snows, the scent of the female behind him teasing his nose in the barrenness of the wind-stripped woodland. She smelled…delicious, he thought, with a soft sigh. Delicious, thrumming with life, her blood decadent, a dainty hint of perfume at her pulse-points mingling exquisitely with the heat and natural oils of her skin. Decadent, earthy, almost savoury, with a hint of lustrous, exotic flowers he might have smelled in another court. She smelled…oh, so human.

He forced the images of ages past out of his mind, preferring to torture himself with visions of the human woman riding behind him.

Tamlin had never imagined the female human who would be destined to die for the sake of his people. Never dared allow himself to hope or dream of ever meeting the obscure demands of Amarantha’s curse to put either of them in this situation.

He would never have dared imagine she would be a beauty.

A human, yes, but a beauty, and far more beautiful than Amarantha. The thought made him want to grin, but it faltered even as his lips drew back to reveal his great fangs, gleaming in the moonlight.

If Amarantha thought for a moment that Tamlin preferred a human over her, her ecstasy at torturing this woman would be harrowing to witness.

It would break him, he knew.

He wouldn’t do it again.

Leila and Lady Althaia would haunt him forever. He did not wish for this woman’s ghost to join theirs, with her sumptuously warm olive-skin and clever dark eyes gazing imperiously at him for all eternity.

Yet, for his people…he had to risk it.

He had to risk her.

What kind of High Lord was he, to put one human life, and his own pride, above the freedom of his people?

The hateful wall appeared, hissing and snapping with vicious power that snatched at him, seething and irrepressible and coaxing - it _knew_ he was not where he belonged. It called him home, the hint of spring tempting his honed senses, almost overriding the stench of the wall that cauterised their world in two.

That was how he saw it. The humans’ rebellion had created a wound that needed staunching; in order for them to survive, that wound had to be cauterised. Burned and sealed, to prevent infection and rot and worse.

He had too few soldiers left to help him with the continued onslaught of foul faeries and worse that Amarantha unleashed upon his lands, that made it through his lands to the wall and beyond it.

The young girl at the manor-house had been right: Most faeries who managed to breach the wall would have done far worse to her and her family than they had done to Andras if unchecked. His sentinels had apprehended beasts at the wall, more and more every year, carrying back with them tales of carnage and the stench of entire human villages wiped out for a day’s sport. The ones who delighted in the _kill_ often made it south of the wall: the ones that liked to keep their humans alive to delight and entertain them with their supple, fragile bodies and easy screams were luxuriating in Amarantha’s sadistic hedonism Under the Mountain.

Balking against the pure, furious power radiating from the wall, Tamlin cast a sleeping spell over the female, heard her soft sigh, and pushed ahead, all his effort on pushing through the boundary. It was a tiny schism, yet had given him so much grief the last few years. Far too many faeries had sniffed out this tear, and there were far too few of his sentinels left, his own power far too depleted to be as truly effective as he wished to be against the onslaught of vicious Fae determined to seek out and torture innocent lives.

 _You’re one among them now, Tam_ , he thought, letting out a pent-up breath as he pushed through the barrier, and came out the other side with the snow-white mare and her sleeping rider trotting easily behind him, the scent of fresh snow and apple-blossom gentling away the stench of the wall as he padded through meadows strewn with daffodils of every imagining, snow glittering as it melted idly under a delicate rising sun splashing golden-pink across the sky. Tamlin had never considered himself a romantic, and even less _whimsical_ , but even his breath was stolen away by the persistent beauty of his lands.

He remembered the barren human realm and stifled a shudder. Kallias, High Lord of Winter, may have been comfortable there, as it was said he was about as cheerless and devoid of warmth or personality as a barren mountaintop iced over with sleet and snow, but Tamlin…wherever he was in the world, he yearned for the gentle rolling hills and exquisite hidden meadows and idle streams of Spring, with its wildflowers and hidden beauties.

Briefly, Tamlin wondered how the human would react to the beauty of his lands, after the brutal barrenness of her own. She was the first human in centuries granted his protection to live in his lands, after all, the first human since the rebellion to witness the beauty of his lands. And his lands _were_ beautiful, he thought, with a surge of pride. They never should have been _his_ , but they were undeniably beautiful regardless of how unworthy he was of claiming them.

He prowled through lands that became more and more familiar, ingrained into the fibre of his being. So close to the historic estate of the High Lord of Spring, he knew every copse and hedgerow, every tranquil pond and sleepy valley carpeted with dainty spires of white lilies, knew where every nightingale and robin made their nests, singing their choruses in the dawn, remembered where the finest deer were to be stalked, the choicest place to find wild strawberries, the cleanest, most flavoursome water gushing in beautiful falls from the melting snows on the mountains far to the north where he hated to go most of all, the scenery too vivid a reminder of the Night Court’s harsh, beautiful Illyrian Mountains…

Home. He was home. Vibrant tulips, scilla and primroses carpeted the ancient woods budding with new life, centuries-old rhododendron and azalea trees groaning with flowers, the air redolent with the scent of hyacinth and magnolia and camellia, and the organic wildness of nature gave way, reluctantly, to manicured topiary and neatly planned parterres overflowing with tulips cultivated for their colour and unusual petal shapes, daffodils and hyacinths, other borders given over entirely to peonies of every description, thousands of them, warring with roses and honeysuckle as they wound around gnarled apple trees heavy with blossom, clematis draping itself as and where it chose, ignoring his best gardeners’ efforts to train the vines. Long flowering tendrils drifted in the breeze, as the first of the gardens signalled his approach to the Rose Hall.

A grand redbrick wall rose up, overgrown with vines laden with rosebuds and clematis, humming with honeybees and butterflies flickering velvety violet and snow white and creamy yellow, and a great cast-iron gate, the posts topped with his likeness - his great bearlike body, the sculptor somehow capturing the feline way he moved, his lupine head, his lethal feline fangs and antlers, his polished onyx claws… The gargoyles had been commissioned new upon his ascendance to High Lord, replacing those that had once depicted his father’s monstrous form.

He growled low at the sight of them, irked. He had been stuck in his beastly form for forty-eight years. Yet another punishment Amarantha had delighted in bequeathing on him. Maiming and brutalising Lucien had not been enough: Turning his own heart to stone had not been enough.

In order to seal Tamlin’s fate, and ensure no female - Fae or human alike - would ever fall in love with him, Amarantha had cursed Tamlin to remain in his beastly form.

 _To ensure that her love is pure and true_ , Amarantha had purred, as rage had coursed through Tamlin’s veins, her curse taking hold.

He had seven times seven years to find the human female who killed Fae with hate in her heart yet could learn to love and even willingly marry a Fae - _him_ \- but…but Tamlin would be stuck in his shifted form. His beastly form. His most terrifying, most _faerie_ form. Amarantha knew, had he his Fae looks, it would be all too easy to coax a female into loving him. So she had taken away all his advantages, his looks, his heart - even his words.

Lucien was convinced there were other ways to communicate than through _words_. But then, Lucien had spent many years drifting between courts, learning the ways of politics and court intrigues, of compliments that cut and double-entendres to conceal true intentions, how to seduce without promising anything…

Tamlin had been trained to kill. It was all he was good for. All he had ever been good at. He should never have been High Lord. His brothers had been trained for this.

His brothers would have bedded and wedded Amarantha with grins on their faces and their hands still stained by the blood of her enemies, spreading her specific brand of terror throughout Prythian - and beyond. They would have found a way to bring down the wall, as they had so often plotted with their father behind closed doors, still furious and embittered about the culmination of the humans’ rebellion up to the very night the High Lord of Night had descended upon the Rose Hall and visited their worst nightmares on them…only then had he mutilated and butchered them, far worse than Tamlin could ever imagine - far worse than what his father and brothers had done to Lady Althaia and little Gaia…

His father and brothers, Tamlin would have considered it justice.

But Tamlin’s father had murdered his mother out of pure vengeance.

He could understand it. But he just…wished his mother was alive, to guide him. Especially now.

Tamlin glanced over his shoulder, and allowed the sleeping spell to drift gently from the female, allowing the birdsong and the scent of wildflowers and the warm breeze to coax her into waking, as the gates slowly opened at his approach.

He wondered, not for the first time, what his mother would have thought about all of this. About him, the High Lord, about him…refusing Amarantha, at the cost of their people - not just for his pride, but because of the very real dread of what might come next if he gave in to her. Would she ever be satisfied?

About him dragging an innocent woman from her family, all for the sake of a curse he could have avoided, if only he hadn’t let his temper get the better of his instincts, the better of his own experience - he _knew_ Amarantha better than anyone else in Prythian. She had lusted for him since he was little more than a boy; his father used to take him to Hybern knowing she panted after him like a bitch in heat, single-minded and shameless in her pursuit. He had failed in most other things: In denying Amarantha, Tamlin could proudly say he had been unwavering. He knew her far too well.

His mother would have made the best of a bad situation, he knew. Had not she done that her entire marriage? She had found what little joy she could in the hateful situation she had found herself, and lived a serene and beautiful life up until her last moments. She had shielded herself, to prevent herself from breaking.

And she would be ashamed to think her gentlest, most thoughtful son might consider mistreating the salvation of their peoples, purely out of anger at Andras’ death - anger at _himself_ for allowing it to happen, anger at himself for dragging this woman to his lands, to be set up for slaughter.

The woman’s fine lashes fluttered, and she groaned in pain as his hold over her relaxed, and she rolled her head, raising a hand to her neck, wincing as she adjusted herself in the saddle. Her dark eyes blinked several times before they adjusted on the redbrick wall choked with wisteria and roses, darting from the tiny trillia to the great silver birches and groaning camellias and rhododendrons beyond the wall, the tulips standing like sentries as they passed, primroses carpeting their way, the sound of bubbling fountains and birdsong gentle on the perfumed breeze.

He did not see her dark eyes flitting to the gargoyles topping the gateposts, as he turned and padded onto the neat gravel walkway forming labyrinthine paths between parterres groaning with flowers, gravel giving way to trimmed emerald-green grass kissed by silver frost, blending into flowerbeds lush with vibrant spring green and flowers of every colour. The gardens of the Rose Hall were a work of art in themselves: every one of them had been designed by his mother, and any tiny alteration agonised him.

* * *

Long sullen silences and the occasional magically-enforced slumber, she thought, wincing, as she found herself coaxed to consciousness, a metallic tang coating her tongue and an unnatural heaviness stinging her eyes. _Magic_.

Her body told her as much, aching and held upright in the saddle by magical bonds that had her shivering with an ancient awareness mingled with horror - the collective memories of a people enslaved, every instinct honed for their survival.

She now had to rely more on her instincts than she ever had before in her life - and she was known for her instincts as much as her intellect. One without the other was dangerous: She had been meticulously crafted as a weapon from a young age. Her earliest memories were lessons with Aunt Emberynn - lessons on the duplicitousness of the Fae, their riddles and word-games and their abhorrent powers. But most significantly…memorising every line of the Treaty.

It was exquisite. Of course it would be. No-one ever said the Fae had been averse to beauty: Quite the opposite. If the legends and songs had not told them so, the beast’s appreciation of Asterin would have been proof enough of their covetousness where beauty was concerned.

In centuries past, human bed-slaves had been bred by the Fae for their beauty.

Angharad was descended from one whose beauty had made her rich in her own right: Her cleverness and her fearlessness during the Slaves’ War had made her infamous.

Ever since Atenayis, the women in their family had been trained from childhood. In the secret arts of love - and of war. Atenayis was the last of their family to have any dealings with the Fae: Her stories had been passed down through the generations as hard-earned, precious wisdom - to keep ignorance at bay.

 _Ignorance is our worst enemy_ , she thought. That was as true among humans as it was against the Fae. It was a creed she had passed down to her own daughters, as her own mama had passed it on to her, and she had learned it from Aunt Ember, and on and on, back to Atenayis herself.

Angharad sent a silent prayer to her great ancestress as the snow-white mare stepped through the gate, crossing the boundary that so obviously marked these lands, this estate, as belonging to the beast who had come to claim her.

Trained from a young age to be observant and assess everything, from the most benign and banal details to the most exquisite, she absorbed everything she could as the mare clip-clopped steadily through the meticulous parterres groaning with spring flowers.

 _We are still in the Spring Court, then_ , she thought. Prythian, the name of the Fae land beyond the wall, which most humans chose to believe had ceased to exist when the Slaves’ War ended with their victory, was divided between seven High Lords. Night, Day and Dawn, and the seasonal courts: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Ancient maps predating the Slaves’ War showed the demarcation lines of the seven courts. Spring had once been the same size as the northernmost court, Night: Spring had once comprised of the human lands to the south of the wall.

Atalan, the human realm was now called.

The beast could have no idea that he was bringing one of Atalan’s fiercest defenders into his own home. Angharad had been many things in her thirty-two years, and often, reflecting on her life, she was unsure quite how she had done quite so much. Her adolescence had been marked by her debut and rise as the cleverest, most exquisite, sought-after courtesan in the realm, lover to the most powerful men in the country, pulling strings and forging dynasties. This career had lent itself to holding the ears of dukes and kings and senators, queens and other courtesans: She had _influence_ , rather than power. Influence was so much more important than the illusion of power, she had always found. And far longer-lasting. Her career as a courtesan had given her opportunities where she would never have otherwise had them.

She had slipped seamlessly from the role of courtesan, giving advice and making decisions behind the scenes for people too fraught and exhausted to be able to think clearly, into the role of a politician, envoy and army commander, drawing on all her experience influencing her clients’ decisions for so many years. She had no longer needed the illusion of a courtesan, the commander’s bed-warmer, not when she had earned her place at High Command with every subtle comment and shrewd decision. There was a _reason_ Orelyus had trusted her to command Atalan’s armies during the Great War, after letting her cut her teeth on command during Traian’s War.

Angharad had forged a dynasty by the end of Traian’s War, and proven herself just, prudent and intimidatingly clever. She had a mind for politics and strategy, was ruthless in war but deeply charismatic in person. She was…dangerous. Orelyus had always said so: That was why he had enjoyed mentoring her all these years. He held her in higher esteem than his own sons, her childhood playmates and occasional lovers, when Orelyus knew he needed to soften the sting of his words by sending Angharad to kiss and coax and fondle their tenderised pride.

Orelyus…

Aunt Ember knew what to do. It was two days’ journey from their home to the southernmost point of Prythian’s lands… Two days in which Aunt Ember would have despatched either Dayne or Asterin to Orelyus, to get word of what had happened to him. So they could prepare.

Whatever the beast wanted, he must need it desperately. Otherwise why risk the lie about the Treaty?

He must be truly arrogant in the ignorance of humankind to dare it - and usually, the beast would have been accurate in his assumption that the terms of the Treaty were largely unknown to the humans who enjoyed the protection of the Treaty yet preferred to imagine the wall did not exist, and therefore neither did the Fae beyond it.

But ignorance was their worst enemy, and Angharad believed that. Aunt Ember had forced her to memorise the Treaty line for line by the time she was ten years old. Angharad knew every word, had explored every nuance, had debated every turn of phrase with Orelyus at great length…

And she was uniquely situated.

Faerie attacks on humans had been growing in number and viciousness over Orelyus’ lifetime, he said: They were incredibly rare when he was a boy. Now, every other month there was news of another massacre - and with Atalan enjoying peacetime, thanks to the union between Queen Galatea and her would-be usurper Prince Kosmin - forged by Angharad after her smaller, fiercer force had stopped Prince Kosmin at the beaches, to prevent a full-scale invasion by Prince Kosmin, who had claim to the throne of Atalan through his paternal great-grandmother only - there was no-one to pin the blame. Peace in Atalan was beneficial to everyone, especially since the Great War.

They were still recovering.

Traian’s War had wreaked havoc on Atalan: They had remained unscathed - unoccupied - during the Great War, if only because of the combined efforts of Queen Galatea, Prince Kosmin, Orelyus and Angharad herself - but they had never experienced such a devastating loss of life. An entire generation had been wiped out by the conflict that had lasted four interminable years - and that was a phenomenon that spanned an entire continent. An entire generation, lost. The survivors were forever altered, and the younger generations were to grow up orphans, or the children of the survivors who would never truly leave the battlefield, never recover from the horrors they had witnessed. Those too old to fight lived on in their grief, shadows of their former selves.

It would take a long time for any of them to recover.

And that included Angharad. She may have been a commander, not a soldier on the front lines…but she had ultimately made the decisions.

She had sacrificed good men for clever tactics. Ultimately they had paid off: But the _cost_ …

Now she was in a unique but unenviable position of being not so much coaxed as snatched into the beast’s den.

Everything that ever happened was an opportunity, however much it seemed to be disguised.

She had opportunity now to find _answers_.

What was happening in Prythian, that so many Faeries were slipping through the wall to attack humans?

And why had this beast sent one of his own through the wall to goad a human into killing it?

He could roar all he liked, but Angharad had seen his reaction when he realised he had let something slip. He had ordered the wolf-Fae not to hurt anyone. Therefore it could be surmised that the beast had _sent_ the wolf beyond the wall.

Why?

And why lie about the Treaty?

Why demand one of her family go beyond the wall to live on his lands?

She would find out soon enough.

And when she had learned enough, she would return home.

Fae were so specific.

And she had never promised him anything. Only that, _if_ the Treaty demanded it, she would go with him to his lands.

The Treaty made no such demands.

Therefore she had no obligation to stay.

She would return home, and prepare her allies for whatever was to come.

 _And I had so looked forward to my retirement_ , she sighed, allowing herself the moment of pure awe as a great palace rose into prominence, all creamy stone and pale rose-gold brick, flat-roofed with soaring windows glittering in the gentle sunshine guarded by doric pilasters, symmetrical and simple - but its simplicity made it grand and elegant.

Far more elegant than its master, she thought, though she had long ago ceased to judge people by their looks.

She would rather spend a year with a comely man with a grand appetite for humour, music and conversation than the most dazzlingly beautiful man in the world. She would rather tuck herself into bed with a girl with pretty eyes and hands roughened by earnest hard work and the voice of a goddess than suffer to idle her time away with the most elegant of ladies who spent hours on their looks and nothing else besides. As she had before, and would again.

Long ago she had ceased caring what they looked like: She appreciated a person’s character. What made them laugh - or weep. What they valued above everything - whether it was loyalty, humour, conversation, music, their granddaughter’s happiness, their people’s prosperity, her respect. And what they would gladly sacrifice to protect it.

Angharad had had many clients. Some of them had been true lovers, although she had never let herself be caught in the snare of love.

 _Love love but do not love the person, lest you fall into their power_ , her mama had once told her, in those early days of her tutelage as a courtesan. The first, and best warning any courtesan could ever receive, hard-earned wisdom passed down through the generations, from Atenayis herself.

Yes, she had had many clients, and she had had several lovers of her choosing, in whom she had relished the freedom to lose herself.

Not one of them had possessed the irrefutable wealth displayed by this palace.

 _Spring_ , she had determined. The beast had brought her to the lands of the Spring Court.

Just how wealthy were the Fae, comparatively?

And did their wealth have anything to do with the attacks on Atalan?

With an abundance of resources jealously hoarded by a select few who retained power with brutal efficacy, what did that mean for a population that grew but did not age, and stubbornly refused to die? Had their affluence affected their economy? Had they started warring amongst themselves for resources, for influence and power?

Had they finally turned their gaze back to the lands lost to them in the Treaty?

The beast had reference it, the Treaty.

As the snow-white mare followed the beast docilely toward the palace, Angharad sifted through every line of every paragraph of the Treaty. She had memorised it: She had insisted Asterin learn it, and Asterin had hated her for forcing her to recite it, day after day.

Yet after this, she knew Asterin too well not to know that Orelya was likely sat in Aunt’s lap, her tiny fingertip tracing the lettering of their family’s manuscript copy of the Treaty. The manuscript…crafted by Fae hands centuries ago, gifted to Atenayis herself before the wall was erected, it listed the birth and death of every child born of her line.

She wondered if Aunt Ember would add a date beside Angharad’s birth-date, or whether she would leave it blank. Whether Angharad would become a legend - and a lesson - to her grandchildren by Asterin and Orelya, and their children, and so on, as Atenayis had been to her.

It was for her children, and their children, that Angharad straightened herself in the saddle, absorbed every detail she could, and bit her tongue as the snow-white mare stopped before sweeping marble stairs, which the beast bounded up without a backward glance, headed to grand doors spread wide in welcome.

The grounds were tranquil, quiet but for the birdsong. No-one else around.

Suspicious in itself.

Where were the gardeners? The stable-boys ready to tend to the horse? The groomsmen and maids cleaning everything to a high polish?

An estate this size did not run itself.

The beast would need an army to tend to the gardens alone. Let alone his palace.

Something about the way the beast had leered covetously at Asterin told her that Angharad would not be put to work washing the windows.

He had orchestrated a unique situation to lure her - someone - here.

Why?

She hissed in pain as she climbed out of the saddle. She rode every day as a habit, but never for as long, nor while magically bound. Her thighs were not raw, just tender, and she slipped slowly onto the marble steps; the mare remained still, docile as Angharad clung to the saddle, testing her weight on her legs as blood flowed properly.

When the eye-watering stinging cramps in her legs were no longer agonising, Angharad turned toward the palace, to those doors open wide in welcome. Shaking out her skirts, as much to rid them of dust as smooth any creases, suddenly conscious of her appearance, Angharad eyed the palace as she would any unscrupulous guild-member, diplomat or army officer daring to question her.

The beast had brought her here for a reason. She was determined to find out what that was.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t intending to start this with a Tamlin POV, but I hate how Maas demonised Tamlin to give Feyre an excuse to leave him - as if just realising it’s not working isn’t a justifiable reason to end a relationship? So I made the decision not to demonise Tamlin in this story. It helps that Angharad is older: She can be far more objective than Feyre’s POV ever showed her to be!


End file.
